At first, it seems like a terrible idea. Thousands of child migrants have been flooding into the United States from their homes in Central America, and a professor from Morgan State thinks we should send them to Guantanamo. Yes, that Guantanamo.
This rankles for obvious reasons–namely that the U.S. military installation has been used to house terrorists in recent years, and has become synonymous with indefinite detention and hunger strikes.
But, as Morgan State Dean DeWayne Wickham points out in his weekly USA Today column, Gitmo also boasts movie theaters, fast-food restaurants, and recreation facilities. If we housed the kids there, they’d be under the care of the Department of Health & Human Services, not the Department of Homeland Security. And it’s got to be better than living in the old Baltimore Social Security building.
Still, Gitmo has a reputation as a place where people are stranded out of sight, (mostly) out of mind. Is that really a place to send children?
Is this really the entirety of the article? If so, very poor journalism. I’m certain that Dean Wickham’s thoughts were more intelligent than what is conveyed here.
There is a link to DeWayne Wickham’s USA Today column, which gives more details, in the post. Here it is again:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/07/wickham-border-children-gitmo-immigration-obama-column/12315921/
If you look at his actual column, it doesn’t go into a whole lot more depth than that. I imagine Dean Wickham has a lot more to say on the subject; I just don’t think that USA Today necessarily gave him the space to make a thorough argument….